Middle-aged men with high cholesterol are much more likely to suffer a heart attack than women of the same age with the same levels, according to new research.

A study of more than 40,000 Norwegian men and women, published in the journal Epidemiology, shows that being a middle-aged man and having high cholesterol levels results in a negative effect - which researchers did not find in women.

However, current clinical guidelines for treating high cholesterol levels do not differentiate between men and women.

Middle-aged men with high cholesterol are much more likely to suffer a heart attack than women - but current clinical guidelines for treating high cholesterol levels do not differentiate between men and women (posed by model)

The study's first author Doctor Erik Madssen, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said: 'Our results suggest that in middle age, high cholesterol levels are much more detrimental for men than women, so that prevention efforts in this age group will have a greater potential to reduce the occurrence of a first heart attack in men.'

The researchers used data from the second Nord-Trondelag Health Study, a survey that included blood sample collection from 65,000 people.

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Because the researchers hypothesised that female sex hormones could possibly protect women partly of a first heart attack, they restricted their analysis to participants who were younger than 60 at the time of the survey.

Researchers had information from 23,525 women and 20,725 men.

During the nearly 12 years of follow-up on the participants who were younger than 60 when the survey was conducted, there were 157 new cases of heart attacks in women and 553 in men.

University: Doctor Erik Madssen from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, pictured, said results suggest that in middle age, high cholesterol levels are much more detrimental for men than women

They also conducted a secondary analysis of participants who were 60 or older at the time of the survey, which gave them another 20,138 individuals for the analysis. However, there was no evidence of a negative effect in male participants in that age group.

Dr Madssen said: 'Our findings suggest that middle-aged men with an unfortunate cholesterol profile have a significant additional risk of myocardial infarction [tissue death caused by a local lack of oxygen due to an obstruction of the tissue's blood supply] than which had been thought previously.

'Thus, these men should be treated more aggressively than what often is the case today, so that more infarctions can be prevented and lives can be saved.'